June celebrations: Part 2

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

JUNE CELEBRATIONS: Part 2

 

      June 17 is the day for vegetarians to celebrate: Fresh Veggies Day and Eat Your Vegetables Day, scheduled in the middle of National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month. Unfortunately, our fresh veggies in the garden are not ready yet. My husband is a vegetarian, and I am next door to being one (I give in to my craving for a good steak periodically!). We do have fresh lettuce, Swiss chard and collards. The Asparagus season is past, and the strawberry season is disappearing rapidly. Fresh, home-grown or locally farm grown veggies are the best. Eat them and be healthy! To read a vegetable poem, click on WATCHING CORN GROW

      June 17, World Juggler’s Day, also brings to mind a good friend, Phredfred the Clown, from Huntsville, Alabama. He is thrilled at a new center of town where he can show off his street clowning, complete with balloon animals. He stayed with us several times when we lived in Atlanta, Georgia, entertaining the neighbors by practicing his juggling. He took my son, age 11, when he was interested in clowning, to the Atlanta Arts Festival, where they had a great day—but I don’t think they were juggling.

     Following the juggling is a relaxing day—Go Fishing Day, June 18. Along with the vegetables, fish is touted as being highly nutritional. As a child, I didn’t like fish, but as an adult I have grown to enjoy it—and lobster and shrimp. Unfortunately, I don’t fish, so I will curl up with a good magazine and read about fishing.

     It is nice to have the peace of Go Fishing Day, but coupled with this day, June 18, is International Panic Day. This is when I panic as I look at my very cluttered house, then consider the writing I haven’t been doing (including working on my novel), the people I haven’t been contacting, and the procrastination I have for attending the fitness room and pool at our local YMCA. Yes, there is reason to panic. Let me escape by splurging on anything you want to do—since this day is also National Splurge Day. What is your escape? Ooh, let me cut into a delicious piece of steak, with mashed potatoes, asparagus and good friends. What a great splurge that will be!

     June 18 also has connections with my writing subject. The Battle of Waterloo occurred on this day in 1815. And the United States declared war on Britain, a war in which my ancestor was captured and thrown into Dartmoor Prison in England. He was enroute to France to try to claim his inheritance. He never returned to the states.

    On World Sauntering Day, June 19, I plan on taking a relaxing walk around our quaint community. I have been doing little of this since I began taking part in a fitness program at the local YMCA, where I do a fifteen minute mile on the treadmill. I miss the sauntering I used to do, walking along slowly, happily and aimlessly. I have to thank W. T. Rabe, a Public Relations Director for a hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan, for creating this day in the 1970s.

      While sauntering, I will think of the first Father’s Day celebration in 1910, the general council of Nicaea’s settling the rules for computing Easter’s date, and two American Revolutionary War participants, General Nathaniel Greene, who died on June 19, 1786, and Samuel Chase, a leader, who died this day in 1811.

     June 20 (the third Saturday in June) is National Hollerin’ Contest Day. It reminds me when I had three of my younger siblings, ages 5, 4 and 2 years old, at our newlywed apartment. They were hollering like crazy. When I suggested that they weren’t hollering loud enough, they hollered louder and longer, until they became so hoarse they couldn’t speak. Just the result I wanted after all that hollerin’ noise. It’s a good thing they didn’t know that June 20 is also Ice Cream Soda Day, or they would have hollered to be taken to Parkside Candy (Main Street near the State University in Buffalo, New York), where the most scrumptious ice cream creations are served.

     Aha! June 20 is also the day that Lizzie Borden was found innocent of the axe murders of her father and stepmother. Lizzie and I descended from the same genealogical line, beginning in America with Thomas and Rebecca Briggs Cornell in Rhode Island. To read about the Cornells, click on KILLED STRANGELY: A NEW ENGLAND MURDER STORY   and to read the story of the night my husband and I stayed at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, click on: LIZZIE BORDEN—A REENACTMENT

     Other events of this day include the debut of “Toast of the Town,” hosted by Ed Sullivan, in 1948, and the first balloon honeymoon taken by Roger Burham and Eleanor Waring in 1909.

     Summer finally arrives on June 21, the Summer Solstice. To celebrate, put on the skates and whiz down the sidewalk, avoiding other people. After all, this is also Go Skate Day.

     In 2009, this is also Father’s Day. I am thankful my husband is a father, as is my son. What I plan on doing is reviewing some of my father’s letters and photographs—he was a Chief Naval Photographer. He was not present in my life due to a divorce, but I reconnected with him when I was in my thirties.

     We should all celebrate June 22, the date that paper money was first approved in the United States. It was not worth much more than it is today, but it was a sign of the independence of the new country. Why not spend some of your paper money on a chocolate éclair (which originated in France)? After all, this is National Chocolate Éclair Day.     

     When I first began writing for the newspaper in Southwestern Pennsylvania, freelancers were allowed to write columns. It was my most interesting writing, and a way for readers to know the stories behind the writers. Some of my most interesting columns included the macabre one on distributing my uncle’s ashes in the water at his favorite New England beach, and the birthday ones I did about my granddaughter’s Thanksgiving birthday. June 23, National Columnists Day, is meant to celebrate columnist’s contribution to society  This day was established In memory of Ernie Pyle, killed in the second World War.

     It is fitting that the typewriter was patented by Christopher Latham Sholes on National Columnists Day.

     In spite of political correctness, a girl’s favorite color is pink. My daughter chose a pink and yellow floral wallpaper for her bedroom when she was five. National Pink Day on June 23 can be celebrated with the wearing of pink, and the displaying of all pink things. Plant a group of pink flamingoes on a friend’s lawn, and don’t remove them until they make a donation to a favorite charity—perhaps for breast cancer research. And remember to put a pink bow on your pooch when you celebrate Take Your Dog to Work Day, a day created by Pet Sitters International in 1996. I read recently where many companies are offering their employees a perk: bringing their pet to work. Perhaps this day can be the beginning of this perk where you work. (Read a dog story: click on MY DOG )

     June 24—Swim a Lap Day. I recently learned the difference between a lap and a length of a pool. The length is one-way, the lap is two-way. On May 20 I celebrated swimming twenty-five laps, measuring fifty yards—just under three-quarters of a mile. To read my fitness progress at my local YMCA, click on: Fitness Program Update: Week 4

     While driving between Ligonier and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, there is a restored log cabin from 1798, I believe. Another log cabin is within walking distance from me in Laughlintown. It is also rumored that there is a Rugh cabin in South Greensburg, which I need to explore because it was my ancestor’s property. Perhaps June 25, Log Cabin Day, will give me a reason to investigate these sites. The Bad Axe Historical Society, along with Virginia Handy, founder of the Log Cabin Society, both in Michigan, created Log Cabin Day on June 25, 1986, in order to promote log cabin preservation and an awareness/education of life in the log cabin era. During this time, catfish might have been a staple, so it is appropriate that National Catfish Day is also June 25. This truly national holiday began on June 25, 1987, when President Ronald Reagan proclaimed: More and more Americans are discovering a uniquely Americans are discovering a uniquely American food delicacy—farm-raised catfish.”  On June 25, 1987, President Ronald Reagan began a presidential proclamation (#5672) with the words “More and more Americans are discovering a uniquely American food delicacy — farm-raised catfish.” This fits in well with the fork being introduced to American dining on June 25, 1630.

     June 26 is an important day for persons hoarding grudges. Forgiveness Day is an opportunity for them to release their hostilities, an action that will benefit themselves more than the persons being forgiven. This action can be reinforced by celebrating Global Forgiveness Day on August 27, International Forgiveness Day on the first Sunday in August, on Forgiveness Sunday on the first Sunday before Lent, and on Yom Kippur.

     On this day, June 26, the first United States smallpox inoculation was administered to Zabdiel Boylston in 1721; the cast-iron plow was patented by Charles Newbold in 1797, and the toothbrush was invented in 1498. On this day in 1810, Joseph Michel Montgolfier, co-inventor for the hot-air balloon, died. To read about the hot air balloon, click on: BLANCHARD: THE FIRST PROFESSIONAL AERONAUT& AMERICA’S FIRST MANNED HOT AIR BALLOON

     It is suggested that reflection pictures be taken in sunglasses on June 27, Sun Glasses Day. On this day in 1629, the first settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony entered Salem Harbor, and in 1787 Edward Gibbon finished writing The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

     Insurance Awareness Day is celebrated on June 28. Insurance is good. We experienced that when our home that we built and rented out (we were living in a different community) was burned in a severe storm in June, 1993. Because we were underinsured, the company settled with us, and we were able to repair our home and purchase a new car with the insurance money. Be careful, however, that you are insured for what you need, not being over- or under-insured. And you cannot insure against receiving a counterfeited bill except through education. On June 28, 1762, the first reported counterfeiting attempt occurred in Boston, Massachusetts.

     Camera Day. June 29. I entered a diner in one community where I was always seen with my camera around my neck. The customers I knew actually sent me home to get the camera, so identified with it was I that my friends considered me not dressed properly without the camera. To read camera/photography stories, click on: WHAT ARE THOSE NUMBERS IN MY CAMERA VIEWFINDER? & WHAT DO YOU SEE THROUGH YOUR CAMERA LENS? & USING A NEW CAMERA WHILE TRAVELING

     Photo-journalism is what I’ve done since 1990. I have a collection of 40 boxes of photographs since I invested in my first quality camera in 1992. Now I use digital cameras—taking over six thousand pictures on a trip to New England in 2003! You might say I am as addicted to clicking the camera as some people are to smoking. The Westmoreland (PA) Photographers (website: www.westmorelandphotographers.ning.com ) plan to make a pinhole camera using an oatmeal box at an upcoming meeting.

     On this day, two noted English writers are celebrated: in 1854, Charlotte Bronte, a novelist, wed Arthur Bell Nicholls, and in 1861 Elizabeth Barrett Browning died.

      June 30 is Meteor Day. Didn’t I recently see a newspaper article heading about a young lad who was hit by a meteor? Too bad I didn’t read it! On this day in 1948 Temple University bestowed the first advanced degree on a computer related topic to H. Harmanian (the symbolic differentiation on the ENIAC) and Bell Labs announced the development of the transistor as a substitute for radio tubes.